Where Did You Go?
by ChicagoFlowers
Summary: "How am I supposed to let you go, that's all I'm asking. I want to hold you again, smell you, and ... I just want you to fade, dearest Delia. So, please, please fade ..." Insanity has never looked more beautiful than it does on Bedelia. Post-season 3 AU. Bedelia Du Maurier/Hannibal Lecter #Bedannibal


_Hi guys,This is my first Hannibal/Bedannibal fanfic. It is angsty (how I like them to be). At least, I think it is. It is a little different. Maybe. I don't know but, I sure do hope you will enjoy and let me know what you think. :) Thank you for reading._

* * *

**Where Did You Go?**

* * *

**I. I didn't see a monster like everyone else. Just the ghost of what was.**

_A ciascun'alma presa e gentil core_

_Nel cui cospetto ven lo dir presente..._

*** * ***

He bares his soul to her, _for_ her.

**_5:29 am_**

She had been pleading to see him andfinally, he grants her this last wish.

_His and hers._

He allows her to see him. All of him. _The real him. _His authentic-self that he's tucked far _far_ away into the back of his mind, that she had thought for the longest time she'd going on never really knowing the man that lies beneath the guise, that he would never let her know him and that she'd be married to a creature she hasn't truly seen.

_Blinded._

It is a rare gift, she knows this, and she cherishes it with every minute particle within her. _Thank you. Thank you so much, darling. _She can feel tears gathering behind her eyes and the part of her that's still holding onto what's left of her control forces them back.

The last time he had stripped this bare for someone, he was immensely betrayed, she, on the other hand, has no problem accepting him for him. She doesn't see a cannibalistic monster like everyone else does, just the ghost of what could have been theirs and what was. She sees _passion_ — lots of it. She welcomes the still eccentric doctor, now _person-suit-less_, even though, it is already far too late.

The black protective cloak now clings to his frail frame and what she sees is the remnants of a broken, lost and confused little boy.

_Lonely. Scared. Imprisoned._

She may be biased. _She is his psychiatrist. _She perhaps is partial to his temperament. _She is his wife. _She could be prejudicial to his favour. _She is in love with him._ But what she most certainly is not is suffering from Stockholm Syndrome as her sister so graciously suggests.

_"Amongst us, I am the only professional here. So do not embarrass yourself by throwing out words that are not to your understanding, Bridget."_

This is _not_ Stockholm Syndrome.

This is merely articulation from deep within her heart; it is the love they have for each other.

She is his wife, his partner, his confidant and more. And she was present, mentally and physically, the entire time in Florence, she was well-aware of the consequences of her actions and what she was getting herself into in playing this dalliance with him.

She was not a hostage, instead, she was a willing participant ... up until he changed the rules.

_Up until the end _... but even then, as she listened to him uttering those words to extricate her from all and any responsibility, she compiled and followed him, like a moth to a flame. Though she understood the weight of his words and his resulting fate, she didn't lie to Jack Crawford to save herself — no, she lied because he told her to.

She had disgorged false-truths that last evening in Italy. And she was a bloody good actress — too good that it frightened her to the bone.

He drugged her.

He took her to Paris and Florence, Palermo, too, all out of her volition.

_"Our marriage was a farce and I am his victim."_

She was brainwashed by him, much like Miriam Lass was.

**_5:40 am_**

As the veil was lifted and as he presented her with his entire being, she sees a marathon of emotions running through his face in a flash.

_Human. Not a monster._

It's pained — and she focuses on the lines and specks in his eyes contorting with ... _sorrow, shame, regret, disgust, hatred?_

It is true, she supposes, the eyes are the windows to the soul and all she sees is that same hollowness whenever his sister is mentioned in their sessions_._

_Mischa?_

Perhaps the thought of his beloved sister, as he slowly shed his well-tailored_ 'facade_' prove to be too much for him because when she blinks her eyes and opens them again not a second later, she no longer sees the blues, just those same dark piercing orbs, trying to pull the tattered remains of his person-suit back in place.

_Like before._

He holds his gaze with hers the entire time. Hers and only hers, as though no one else in the room mattered.

They do not.

"I see you," she manages to mouth against trembling lips, and by the way his eyes warm at her, she knows he appreciates the sentiment.

It's all he ever wanted.

**_5:45 am_**

She sits alone, eyes stone-cold and resigned; she tries to will herself not to blink — she ought to not give in to emotions, she doesn't want to miss anything he wants, needs to say to her any longer.

No words are needed.

She will know. He will, too.

While he is now able to freely bestow the beast within, she still cannot, will not and should not.

At least, for now.

Everyone is watching her _(them) _as though they're the entertainment.

_"I do not want to lie, Hannibal. I cannot lie."_

_He reached out slowly, gently smoothes the tears from her cheeks with his thumb._

_"You will have to, dearest Bedelia. Do not do it for me or even yourself, do it for them."_

But her composure is hanging on a weak strand of hair and she doesn't think she's strong enough anymore to resist him and the wave of pain quaking in her chest. It feels close to a fist squeezing its way into her heart, robbing her of her breath, but she stares back at him anyway, seeking out the pain, letting it singe, then burn, then scar.

**_5:47 am_**

_"Hannibal, please, let me do it my way. They are going to kill you."_

_"Would that be so awful?"_

She nervously fiddles with the ring on her left hand, the diamond catches the light and she watches as his gaze flits down at her hand and she knows with precise confidence that it's the same memory as hers playing in his mind.

_Rings. His and hers. Blue eyes against dark one. Husband and wife._

She smiles lightly as tears form in her eyes. In counter, he frowns and shakes his head very slightly, very very slightly, and she knows he's wishing he could comfort her right now.

**_5:50 am_**

_"Do you trust me?"_

_She only nodded at his question — his answer, a silent 'yes'._

_She trusted him._

_"You will do as I say, then."_

She trusts him.

**_5:51 am_**

Her heart beats an amaranthine rhythm against her chest as she glances at the clock and she watches on the other side, the half a dozen men clad in white coats walking towards him.

_Touch._

_He had curled his large hand around hers — before, at their final encounter. "Okay, I will do it."_

She can still feel those hands on hers and the way it made her feel.

_Warm and safe._

Warm, like she never was in her entire life. She was ardent and safe with him_ (even_ _when he threatens to serve her as meat sometimes). _Now she just is not; she's open and exposed, like an exhibit for everyone to gawk at.

**_5:53 am_**

_"No."_

_"I had a patient. A young man. It was when I was just a resident. He was in a terrible motorcycle accident and had slipped into a coma and when woke up, all he would talk about was this white light and how he had had conversations with God. He said he saw heaven," he said, "Years later, I heard that he had been ordained as a deacon."_

_"Why are you telling me this right now?" she asked, confused as to how the story had to do anything with their predicament._

_"God sacrificed himself," he ran his thumb gently along her cheekbone, mindful of the bruise that glistens with streaks._

_"You are not God, Hannibal! And we both know you're not going anywhere near Heaven. And if you tell me any more crap about heading towards the light or looking down on me from Heaven, I swear I will kill you myself!"_

"Thank you," she sees his lips move. His eyes are soft, the quality reserved for her only.

He lied to her. He promised he wouldn't.

He — It was incredibly _rude_ of him but ...

She winces at the crack of her back and she quickly jerks her eyes open to see a watery blur of straps and IV lines.

**_5:55 am_**

_"If we are made in His image and our fate predetermined — If we are His puppets, we are not responsible for what we do ... Regardless, it will give me a chance to have a one-on-one with God. Maybe, after over thirty years, I will finally get my answer."_

_Mischa?_

_"I'm going to be all right."_

_"All right?" she exhaled as though she'd been punched in the gut, "What about me? What about us? I get it, okay? I get it. You'll be okay. You'll be fine, but what about me? So don't do it for yourself. Do it for me." she pressed a hand to her lips as she pleaded for him to listen, tear coming undone, "Because if you die, I'll never be able to forgive you."_

Because it takes two for hearts to beat, eyes to roll and hands to hold.

"Bedelia."

She hears her name from afar and she's searching, searching, straining her ears to pinpoint where the sounds are coming from.

It really is different, this tiredness: thick, logy exhaustion, the kind that makes her feel like she's underwater.

"Bedelia ... Bedelia ... Bedelia ..."

It takes two for eyes to meet, hands to wander, a face to be buried in between breasts and the throbbing at her curls.

It takes two for it all.

But it only takes one to keep the secret.

**_5:58 am_**

"Hannibal Lecter ... witnesses ... families ... last words ..."

_"For dying?"_

_Her muscles were crunched tense. She didn't want to look at him. She couldn't look at him. He will see her, her secret will be there, scored in her eyes. Safe enough from a roomful of FBI agents, but not from the gaze of the man whom she loves and loves her. But she didn't have the energy to resist him when he cupped her chin and twisted it for himself, forcing their eyes together._

_"No. For making me love you."_

_At the end, she thought she heard a crash as if someone had thrown a stone at the window._

Everything actually sounds like it's underwater; someone is saying something somewhere, she's pretty sure, but it's incomprehensible.

**_5:59 am_**

"Hannibal Lecter, you have been sentenced to ... I would like to give you the opportunity to make a statement before we proceed with your sentence."

"Bedelia ..."

_"Bedelia." Hannibal sighed, his grip loosening and thumb brushed along the line of her jaw. "I'll do it. I will do whatever you want me to do."_

Her brain screams in terror, all of her senses on high alert and she begins to panic as she scrambles to imprint and memorise all that is in front of her.

"Dr. Du Maurier, are you okay?"

"Bedelia!"

"No. No ..." she pushes to get up, tries to stand but it seems as if she's standing underwater now, swaying in slow motion, side-to-side; she has to listen very carefully to make out the words before Hannibal's face fuzzes at the edges and starts moving backwards, further away, and her last thought as the rest of her vision tunnels is, _'Please, don't leave me be'_

**_6:00 am_**

**II. For so long, I'd forgotten how to remember. Now, I can't remember how to forget.**

_In ciò che mi rescrivan suo parvente,_

_Salute in lor segnor, cioè Amore..._

*** * ***

She still remembers it at times.

It's all she can do now with the time she has and all she has is time — _reminisce and remember _— because she's officially retired. She doesn't have that one patient who had chosen to ignore her initial retirement anymore.

No one does.

Well, perhaps, God does and they're probably conversing right at this moment — but then again, she's doesn't believe in such, the unknown, the unforeseen, the Almighty. There is no concrete evidence that suggests the necessity to believe in God or gods. And to her, religion itself is nonsensical, the predicated upon the concept of faith, defined as a belief in a concept that cannot otherwise be defended by logic, reason, evidence, or science. Instead, people are supposed to simply have this "faith" — a position no one would consciously adopt with for just about any other issue. For instance, standing in front of a speeding bus with nothing but "faith" to keep it from hitting you.

She looks up at the ceiling.

If only the blank space holds all the answers.

She wasn't like this.

She was in control of her self as a whole, her psyche, her passion. She was miles away in mind and spirit from everyone else, closed off and cold, detached even. She was a little sad, yes, a little bit lonely at times, too, but she liked it that way. She was content ... enough. It was easy — easier than this, feeling emotions.

This is too messy for her. Too much pain and suffering and it is all Hannibal's fault. He had broken her not once but twice — had taught her how to remember and now, she cannot remember how to forget.

In the early hours of the day, when the world is still eerily silent and the sheets feel as foreign to her as the tenderness in her mother's touch at her leaving, when nothing but the occasional small sounds are heard, the way she can hear the thumping of blood pumping through her veins and drumming softly in her ears, the feeling of air passing in and out of her body effortlessly as her chest rises and falls — she flits her eyes shut and remembers a glance, a pant, a caress, a slap, an arch of the back; a tear across porcelain in a gold-laced room.

It never was so cold and haunted before, though.

Some mornings, the good mornings, she wakes up to his eyes before he actually surges in, before the pain festers with the deaden realisation and familiarity and the rush and the heat and the "I will always love you" would set and before reality becomes an everlasting echo that seizes to fill in her heart.

"Go away, Hannibal, please."

On the days, when she is feeling most daring, her fingertips will press against the inner flesh of her thigh, the blue-grey and purple marks graciously left behind by firm fingers, weeping the blood vessels beneath. She doesn't dare let herself face the fact that the bruise parts her skin by mid-summer, and she continues to press ferociously for a shock, a wince; an indication that it may have very well actually existed.

But he is real; he is here.

**III. It stands for a knife for the rest of my life.**

_Già eran quasi che atterzate l'ore..._

*** * ***

She returns home _(her parents home)_ the week before Christmas, fingertips against the crisp frost of the cab window. The cab driver snorts, curses, shrieks, a staccato rhythm against the horn as he snails through New York traffic, but it goes unseen by the passenger.

All she sees is the worn and white tread by Saks, the steaming cocoa held between cold, frigid hands; the pieces of herself in a city as strange to her as the woman staring out the cab window.

_...Straniero_

She remembers the hard set in his jaw that night, how that seemingly mundane word had offended him.

**IV. I fake it with exemplary ease that I am beyond fake.**

_Del tempo che onne stella n'è lucente..._

*** * ***

It is her baby brother who goes to greet het first, towering so high and mighty, with a kiss to her sunken cheeks, arms wrapping entirely around her near-gone waist. She hadn't seen him in over five years but that grin is still unmistakable, even to her alien eyes and is nauseous for only another millisecond along with joyous twirl before he had put her down.

"It is so great to finally see you, _Bee._ "

Bee. She hated that nickname and still does. However, only Benjamin is allowed to call her by that since as a toddler, he wasn't able to pronounce her name and somehow, almost forty years later, 'Bee' still stuck.

"Where's Mom?"

She then turns as her mother takes a moment from preparations, before sending her daughter up to her bedroom to get dressed in a brush of a kiss, the gesture still as unusual to her as the moment it first happened.

It is only when pearl studs lace her ears that she realises her hands are deathly shaking.

She needs to drink.

**V. I love him so much he just turns to hate.**

_Quando m'apparve Amor subitamente..._

*** * ***

It is an unmistakable sliver up her spine that has her lids shutting for a moment.

It stings. It hurts. It is welcomed.

_No_.

She grinds her teeth, flexes her fingers, and opens her eyes, watching as he simply regards her with a nod before turning back to his colleagues.

This is his element and he is thriving, basking its glory — so elegantly he whisks from one guest to another. His chest puffed and proud.

Her husband is infinitesimally the most glamorously handsome man she knows.

At least he didn't completely ignore her because that would have just been _rude_.

She sighs. She can settle for that.

"I want to see you. Will you let me?"

And it is only one stop to the restroom, one finger pressed against her inner thigh, and that alone allows her to smile through the entire night.

**VI. I'll never know, and neither will you, of the life you didn't choose.**

_Cui essenza membrar mi dà orrore..._

*** * ***

She watches him as he watches her; she's taking sneaky glances every now and then at him, watching him in her peripheral, eyes catching him, his at times, and always, as she greets her parent's guests with a toothy grin and in her best dress as an army of New York's finest elites welcome her back home from Syria with her completing the MSF project.

At first, she was aloof as to what they were congratulating her for.

"Mom, why is Mrs. Forbes-Montgomery asking me about how I dealt with the war in Syria?"

It was what her mother had told her friends at the country club.

"Just stick to the story, Bedelia, darling," her mother hisses in between teeth when her eyebrows furrow to the middle, confused about why she ought to tell more lies.

"I will not have you further embarrass this family."

More fallacies and lies her mother had concocted to save face. Normally, right about now, she'd be fuming at her mother, but now, she's just too exhausted to waste even a breath on an argument that wouldn't accomplish anything tonight. So, she politely smiles at her mother, apologises for raise her voice before towards more guests. She nods through fake smiles and says her 'thank yous' and she spins a story so bewildering that she's even starting to believe that she was in Syria all this time.

Though she does not know where she had been, she knows with absolute clarity that she wasn't with Doctors Without Borders.

She remembers the plane ride Paris and Florence and then, Palermo and Baltimore again.

The rest melts into a blur.

The chase to be close to him threatens to expose her well-kept secrets and lies. So, just as quickly as that thought pops into her head, she's already dashing for her old bedroom, effortlessly snaking away from the parlour, past the doors, and up the stairs.

She takes two steps at a time as though there is someone walking behind her — there is no such need to be walking with grace and poise, mother — and in the quiet, dimly lighted hallway, there is the most beloved embrace waiting for her, right ahead of her and she dashes straight into his arms.

"I missed you."

It takes two for hearts to beat, eyes to roll, hands to hold.

This time, it takes two to keep a secret.

**VII. It looks like a limb was torn off.**

_Allegro mi sembrava Amor tenendo..._

*** * ***

She lives with her sister.

By the end of January, she's already fully moved in with Bridget and her four children. Her brother-in-law doesn't come home to his own home most of the time, so that's just splendid for her because she never really liked him and vice versa.

It isn't _rude_. It is just ... _is_.

They told her to live with someone, anyone, really, because what she needs is to be with people. She knows what they're saying in between the lines; she was a psychiatrist; they're afraid that she might eat her gun.

But they don't know that she's not alone. She's never alone.

Not anymore.

**VIII. There's a ghost in my lungs. He helps breathe.**

_Meo core in mano, e ne le braccia avea..._

*** * ***

He breathes against the skin of her neck, presses his toes against the skin of her calves, and traces the shell of her ear with his tongue.

"Bedelia..."

It is summertime and the room is hot, sheets hanging off the corner of the bedpost, windows stretched and curtains still against the ill-present breeze.

Trays of room service litter the carpet, his own desperate and sordid need to fill the vacancy near her ribs, translating into the what's left of trays of desserts and starches and Armagnac. His chest holds the markings of a madwoman, her nails ripping at the skin as he holds her down and forces scones, syrup, dusted cocoa truffles down her throat.

She screams in his face, tears at his hair, slashes at the flesh at his back and finally runs into the shower stall. He is at her feet, always, always at her feet, behind her and following suit, when she slams the glass door shut and taunts him with eyes locked with his own and one finger shoving down her throat.

He's soaking beside her by the time she blinks and yanks the finger from her mouth, pushing her up against the shower stall and locking her arms behind her.

"If I had thought you'd whittle because of me, I'd have never left you, my dear, Bedelia."

She's gasping and raging and most certainly crying as he lifts her up, whilst she squeezes her eyes shut, and acquiesces.

He laughs. It is deep and throaty and so not of his character before he speaks, before he digs his fingers and leaves her seeing white.

"How could you do this to me?"

**IX. I'm not calling you a liar. Just don't lie to me.**

_Madonna involta in un drappo dormendo..._

*** * ***

It is a late Friday afternoon when Bridget sees them, tiny love bites trailed from the curve of a shoulder, down to the expanse of her back and across the protruding ridges of her vertebrae, finally wrapping around her hip and halting above her curls. She hears her elder sister gasp as she comes in, her own arms unconsciously tugging the silk of her robe over her body, depleting the evidence from her sister's sight.

The heaviness in those sapphire orbs becomes too much to bear, so she heads into the bathroom and locks the door behind her, fingers trailing down a particularly savage mark right above her sex.

"Bedelia, talk to me," she hears Bridget plead, the knocking to frantic pounding at the doorway is making her head spin and palms grow hot.

He had been so incredibly tender that night.

She kneels on skin and bones and heaves.

**X. I sold my soul to Satan.**

_Poi la svegliava, e d'esto core ardendo..._

*** * ***

"This isn't going to last, sweet, Bedelia," he murmurs warmly against her ear, and even now she remembers the thrill of hearing his accent curl around her name that first time.

Her eyes catch his very own in the silent backdrop of a mirror in the hotel bathroom with fingers so tenderly tracing patternlessly on her forearm that she barely felt them at first. "And you know it too, Delia."

She had to leave.

There were too many rules at her sister's home for her liking _(she wasn't allowed to lock the bathroom door or her bedroom) _that she opt to blow her entire retirement on hotel rooms, cigarettes and ... heels.

She is forced to watch wretched eyes regard her with as much respect as the memory of his tongue dipped deep within her sex.

"I don't want trouble."

It is a trembling degree laced with a hint of firmness that overcomes her. "I am glad we have that settled, then."

Only when she tries to escape his body behind hers does his hand slip, slip far away from the memory of stolen kisses in the cobblestones of Florence and public kisses laden with coloured gifts at the Capponi and vengeful kisses atop pianos and parting kisses in the rain.

It slips again, and he drags, and she pulls at his hands again, and he clamps one over her mouth and whispers about family, broken promises, and the places where only he can make her purr.

**XI. I love you so much; I'm not going let you move on**

_Lei paventosa umilmente pascea..._

*** * ***

She swears to him that she will not follow, but he smirks and pulls at her arm and leads her out the open glass doors of the balcony. It is a long drop (not the kind that Dr. Alana Bloom took) and it is cold and winds are strong. She will surely splatter to shards on impact.

_Defenestration_.

She attempts to run back inside and pleads for him to let her go, but it is all pretend, all the most spectacular show ever invented as he holds her tight and has her laughing within minutes.

He pulls her to the fields and water and aids her in disrobing from the white and pearls and satin of what would have been the most memorable day of her life.

He had bought her a wedding dress, handcrafted by only the best atelier in Italy, so that they could formally be married to one another in their hearts, so as to speak, as Mr. and Mrs. Lecter.

He taunts her to join him in the water, taunts her flesh to meet his and depart from the pounds of white fabric at her feet.

She steps into the water in her undergarments and swims and floats and has him at her back within seconds.

"I said I was going to protect you, didn't I? You never have to worry."

_No. She does not need to._

She can only laugh as he smiles against her ear, presses a damp kiss at the base of the structure before laying her gently on her back to float.

Sinking. Sinking. Sinking. She lets go.

His voice becomes fainter and fainter, farther, then distant, and the water gets higher and higher, into her mouth and up her nose, but she is smiling through it all.

**XII. Isn't it just like dying? Except you can still feel the shame.**

_Appresso gir lo ne vedea piangendo._

*** * ***

She awakens to a pair of clear gazing sapphire eyes and a thin tube pressed neatly at her wrist. Her lips feel chapped, dry and coarse and she's vaguely aware of this hollow pain every time that she breathes, a numb pressure that overwhelms her lungs and makes her feel lightheaded.

Her sister's lips are shaking as she presses a kiss against her forehead. She hears words and senses movements and feels pressure at her throat.

Breaking. Breaking. Breaking. She fears her heart is breaking again.

"...number of lacerations covering the mass of her shoulder down to her back and hips...signs of starvation and perhaps regurgitation tendencies too...severe hypothermia when admitted...third admittance since her last suicide attempt following her miscarriage and her husband's death..."

"That monster wasn't her husband."

"We're going to get you help," she hears her baby brother say, it's hoarse and pained and she has no strength to comfort him because she can only watch Hannibal as he approaches her bedside and kneels beside her.

He brushes her hair with his fingers, rubs at her lips, and smiles widely.

"I'm never going to let you go."

She smiles too.

_Thank you._

/

The poem is 'A Ciascun'Alma Presa e Gentil Core' from Dante Alighieri's La Vita Nuova, which Hannibal bursts into in 3x01, Antipasto.


End file.
